The Amazon Summit - The Inclusion of the Amazon Forest in the negotiations about Climate Change - “Letter of Manaus” presented at COP-15, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 2009

Location: Manaus, Amazonia, Brazil

Date: October 6, 7,8,9 & 10, 2009

Range of Temperatures: 38 to 44 Celsius

The Amazon Summit

Invitation:

At ICLEI World Congress – Local Action for Sustainability - held in Edmonton, Canada in June 2009, I met a representative from Brazil, who invited me to present the work we are doing in Fort St John, Canada regarding reductions on the CO2 emissions, the Community Energy Plan, water conservation, legislative changes in the Subdivision & Development Servicing Bylaw and Building Bylaw, storm water management, and changes in the overall efficiency in buildings in the Province of British Columbia. For more information and details, please visit www.fortstjohn.ca

The reality in the Amazon today

The Amazon Association of Municipalities with 62 member municipalities in the Amazon Region and the Brazilian National Confederation of Municipalities with 5,200+ municipalities across Brazil are working jointly to tackle the issue of deforestation in the Amazon Forest, as deforestation and change in land use is the principal source of CO2 emissions in Brazil. The Amazon area encompasses 7,000,000 km2.

Some of the critical issues today in the Amazon area are:

Cadastral regularization and surveys to obtain land titles

Change in the economy of subsistence, which creates uncontrolled cut of the forest to plant soy bean, however the soil conditions allow only 1 or 2 harvests

Severe lack of education regarding environmental issues

Lack of forestry management and land use planning as well as mechanisms for territorial regularization based on the land occupation conditions

There are 16,000,000 of irregular houses in Brazil.

In the 1990’s multinational companies took over the Amazon to cut indiscriminately … see following graph …

A forest racing towards an ecological and climatic tipping point?

Map of Amazonia 2030, showing drought-damaged, logged, and cleared forests. This map assumes that deforestation rates of 1997-2003 continue into the future, and that the climatic conditions of the last 10 years are repeated into the future.

Brazilian Emissions Profile & the Brazilian Challenge

Deforestation in Brazil takes 70%+ of the emissions – rest of the world approx 10 to 20% -  The Amazon area has approximately 25% of the world’s forests

Brazilian Emissions

Some facts:

• 7,000,000 km2 area of Amazon Forest
• The City of Curitiba (Brazil) is one of the greenest cities in the world (video)
• Only 8% of the municipalities in Brazil have any structure / Department or component related to the Environment
• 20 municipalities are ICLEI members in Brazil, (1100 in the world) and only Manaus in the Amazon area.
• Brazil spends 15 times more to remedy an environmental problem compared with what would have cost to prevent the problem.
• Emerging counties (China, India & Brazil) are big emitters of CO2 however they are not bounded by the Kyoto Protocol
• Countries who complied with the Kyoto emissions commitments are mostly located in Scandinavia and Europe (see chart below)

My presentation about Fort St John, the Province of British Columbia and Canada in the framework of the Amazon Summit

The full slideshow will be presented on November 23^rd at City Council Meeting.

Some participant countries at the Amazon Summit: European Union (represented by Belgium), Denmark, Germany, USA, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, and the 9 countries who share the Amazon Forest: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, British Guyana, French Guyana, Surinam, Peru and Venezuela

I received questions about smart-efficient buildings, net-zero, net-plus homes, solar energy, tools to survey / control / enforce forest cuts, aerial photography, satellite imagery, cadastral and titling system, incentive programs from the Government,

Carbon Neutrality in Municipal Operations – Carbon Tax Program in BC – Hospital / Sustainable Neighborhood Integration

The summit was simultaneously translated in 3 languages: Portuguese (official language of the Summit) Spanish and English